Bound
by makesometime
Summary: She wakes up. This, in and of itself, is nothing short of a miracle. Fix-it fic, post finale.


A/N: I wasn't going to write fix-it fic, mostly because I didn't have any inspiration for it, but also because everyone else was doing the most perfect ones themselves. In comparison this is quite simple, but it's an idea that wouldn't leave me.

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><p>The gun fires and all she knows is pain.<p>

She expected pain, a brief flash before the all-encompassing darkness took hold of her (forever this time). So when the pain doesn't ebb, continues to flow through her, radiating from behind her eyes and down through her crumpled body she curses the world. Why can't things ever be simple?

A headshot is supposed to be quick, relatively painless. A fantastic way to bring down an enemy – she knows this, has used it on many occasions but now finds herself doubting her own certainty.

But then... she knows Lucas is just a little boy playing soldier, pretending to have knowledge that he can't possibly possess. If anyone could mess up a bullet to the head it would be him.

She's just conscious enough to hear the voice of her would-be murderer, several feet away by now.

"_Leave her there until he stops watching. Then move her to the brig. There are uses for her yet._"

There are many points in that sentence that she could linger on, dissect in her supposed final moments. But one shines like a beacon, calling her, taunting her, breaking her resolve.

_He._

Nathaniel is watching. Was watching. Saw his son shoot her, kill her, leave her for dead. Her heart breaks, adding to the already unbearable pain in her body and soul.

She'd done her duty and it has cost them both immeasurably.

She just hopes it's worth it, in the end.

#

She wakes up.

This, in and of itself, is nothing short of a miracle.

Her eyes are screwed shut against the invading light but eventually she works up the courage to open them, finding herself, as Lucas's words had promised, in the brig. Even the dull red lighting is enough to make her head pound and she tries to move a hand to it only to find herself bound to one of the pillars.

In her own brig.

The indecency of it all makes her furious.

She has no idea how long she's been unconscious – with a head injury like hers it could have been a long, long while. She moves her jaw carefully and doesn't feel the expected pull of dried blood on her skin. She attempts to move her other, unbound, arm - the one she fell on - to her forehead. It's a slow and painful process but she reaches her skin eventually and feels about cautiously. No bullet wound, just a goose egg the size of which even she hasn't experienced before.

She tries to pull at her bindings but doesn't have the strength to do much. She's weakened by pain and lack of food and water. Taking stock of herself she thinks it must have been at least a day or two since she'd been shot – Lucas must have found other things to take precedence over her.

Once she's sure that moving her head won't cause it to topple off her body, she takes a look around the room.

The door is sealed shut, just. It's dented and crumpled (much like herself), the glass has cracks running through it but the whole structure stands firm, blocking her route out if she's able to get herself out of this mess.

She stares at it as she tries to formulate a plan but her head is woolly, it's hard enough to form coherent thoughts let alone fit them into an order.

And then she hears it.

Footsteps.

They're coming from above but they're not hurried and she skids back across the floor in a vague, pointless attempt to hide herself from whomever might be coming to see her. The sound of voices follows the feet down the stairs and she forces herself to listen, to judge the tone and content of the words.

She can't make them out, but she knows this: there is no shouting. No bellowing of orders by angry Phoenix Group soldiers. Just speech, regular everyday conversation the likes of which she hasn't heard for quite some time. It makes her whole being feel lighter, even as she struggles to make sense of it all.

Her eyes remain glued to the door from her hiding spot, so she sees the shadow of a man fall over the wall beyond. He's moving slowly, ambling, favouring one side of his body as if injured.

Not Lucas then, unless one of the colonists got a crazy idea in their head without her around to stop them.

When the man passes into view her whole world stops.

_Nathaniel._

She slides forward on her knees, unbelieving. How can he be walking around Terra Nova so freely? Where is Lucas?

She watches as he picks up a chair, righting everything the small room beyond the cell with deliberate care. The look of sadness on his face tugs at something deep inside her.

He thinks she's dead. He's so close, _so close_ and he doesn't know it.

She tries to call to him but her voice is gone, barely a whisper through lack of use. His eyes pass over the door to the cell and he sighs, walking over to the bent metal and running his hands mournfully over it.

He looks inside, and then looks away.

Her heart sinks.

And then he looks back.

His expression is one she knows well, has worn many a time herself. He is haunted by her appearance in front of him, thinks her an apparition of one of his many ghosts, back to remind him of his failings. With a small sad smile to the woman he thinks can't possibly be there he turns away again.

"Nathaniel!" She calls, her voice broken, barely a sound escaping but she must, _she has to_. He has to know she's real.

He's back in an instant, his highly trained senses picking up the noise with ease.

"Wash?" He says, voice muffled by the door. His face lights up with hope when she reaches a hand out to him. "Wash!"

She watches as he punches the security code into the door, heavy presses of his fingers surely making it impossible to get the digits right. He tries several times before they both realise that the tech is broken and he slams a palm against it in a rage. It's only moments before he is slamming his shoulder into the door, pushing all his weight against the broken structure in an effort to force the metal off its hinges.

The thumping of his body against the door makes her already tender head explode with pain but she can't take her eyes off him as he forces the metal to bend to his will. He switches to using his booted foot against the lock and it's through this that the door finally relents, allowing him to tear it open and shove his way through.

He flies across the room, landing heavily on his knees in front of her. And then he stills, losing all momentum.

"Tell me I haven't finally lost it, Wash." He says quietly, looking over her face without touching her.

She reaches for his hand, clearing her throat a few times. He pulls a bottle of water from the pocket of his pants and helps her drink a small amount. When she feels a little more confident in the strength of her voice, she tries to speak. "I'm real. At least, I think I am."

He laughs, bringing his free hand to cup her cheek. "How is this possible?"

"Your son is a lousy shot. Either that or he had plans for me that he didn't get to carry out." She says, frowning as best as pain will allow. "What happened?"

"It doesn't matter, it can wait." He says, unwinding his hand from hers and bringing it to her other cheek.

And then he leans in and crushes his lips to her dry, chapped ones and the pain is fleeting in comparison to the rush of emotion that floods through her. She winds her free arm around him and pulls herself closer, ignoring her screaming body.

When he pulls away and runs a hand over her forehead tenderly she realises that her palm is slick with blood that is not her own. She scowls, sitting back to tug his t-shirt up and finds broken stitches over a deep wound in his side.

"You tore a door down with a fresh _knife wound_?" She chastises. "Not that this was sewn up very well in the first place."

"Of course not." He says quietly. "You weren't there to do it."

She blames the rush of happiness for her ability to taunt him. "And whose choice was that?"

His eyes darken and he wraps himself around her again, hugging her tightly to him. "Never again, Wash."

When they've both had their fill of human contact neither of them expected ever again, he moves away from her to rip the bindings from her wrist, holding her hand tightly.

"Can you stand?"

She tries, legs shaky but somewhat supportive. "Think so, might struggle with the stairs." He nods his head and bends to put an arm around her torso as the other heads for her knees. "No! Don't you dare!" She says, batting his hands away from her. "I am _walking_ out of here, understand?"

Her defiance brings the smile back to his face, even evoking a chuckle, before he leads the way to the door. Progress is slow, they're both weakened, but hell if they aren't both determined. Her eyes struggle to adjust to the extra light as they mount the stairs so they take it very carefully, pausing several times for her to recover some breath. Neither of them want her return to the colony to be remembered as a stumbling, squinting mess.

He backs out of the door, hands ready to support if she needs it and she doesn't miss the way everything stops around her when she steps over the threshold.

Silence reigns as she looks around the slowly re-building colony. The Phoenix Group is clearly gone, previously crumbling structures are supported and a smaller version of the marketplace is back handing out provisions to the needy.

Everyone's halted what they're doing and is now staring in disbelief at her. Her eyes land on Jim Shannon's back as he slowly turns, Elisabeth pointing over his shoulder at her. Both of their faces are pictures; shock, awe, gratitude painted across them clear as day. He starts towards her instinctively, then stumbles to a stop, not quite able to accept what his eyes are telling him. He walks forward again, reaching behind him blindly for his wife's hand and tugging her with him.

Her attention is so drawn in by the faces of the people she had willingly sacrificed herself to save that she nearly misses the blur of movement to her right, only just making out the figure of Mark Reynolds before he has his arms wrapped around her, crushing her in his hold and muttering nonsense in her ear. She relaxes in his embrace and allows the relief to finally flood her, eyes stinging with tears she will shed later – perhaps alone, probably with Nathaniel. It appears they both have reason to grieve now.

"How?" Mark says into her hair.

She strokes a hand down his back soothingly. "I don't know, Mark."

He steps back and just stares at her, managing a small smile eventually. "Doesn't matter anyway."

She presses a quick kiss to his cheek and allows him to hold her hand as she turns to Jim and Elisabeth.

"Wash..." Jim croaks. "I... _thank you. _I didn't think I'd ever get the chance to say that."

"You're welcome, Shannon. Thank you for keeping him safe."

Jim laughs, squeezing her shoulder as Elisabeth worms her way between the pair of them and begins clucking over Wash's head wound. "We need to get you checked out, lieutenant."

People part like the red sea as the small group of five make their way to the hospital. Elisabeth leads the way, Mark and Jim flank her and Nathaniel follows close behind, on alert for any indication that she might need his help. A few random rounds of applause break out as they pass more and more colonists, people cheer and holler at the sight of her and she hates it a little – she's no more worthy of this than any other member of the security forces, she just had the dumb luck to survive against the odds.

Nathaniel senses her tension and lays a calming hand on her shoulder, which does the job as they make their way into the hospital.

"Hop up there, Alicia." Elisabeth says, rushing off to prepare herself to examine her friend.

Jim and Mark make their excuses, promising to come and see her later, while Nathaniel takes up a post by her bed that she doesn't think he leave any time soon if she doesn't say something to make him.

"Can you get someone to have a look at the Commander's wound?" She asks when Elisabeth rejoins them.

The doctor grins at Nathaniel over her head before looking down at her. "You're nearly mortally injured and still more concerned about him?"

She shrugs. "I'll get over this eventually. He might bleed out through stubbornness."

"Don't want anyone other than you stitching me up from now on Wash."

She rolls her eyes at him and turns back to Elisabeth. "Bandage him at least? Once I'm over the _shot to my head_ I'll sew him up."

Nathaniel laughs and drops a kiss to the top of her head and allows Nurse Ogawa to lead him away to another bed.

"That's new." Elisabeth says as she starts her examination.

She shrugs. "Not so much."

"Oh really?" Elisabeth smiles, injecting her with a light sedative. "What do you say, once you're back to your normal self, we have a night where you explain exactly what you mean by that?"

She feels herself start to drift off under the effects of the hypo but can't help the grin that graces her face. "Deal."


End file.
